6 best email marketing tools for higher education businesses in 2025

Higher education institutions face unique communication challenges in 2025. Between recruiting prospective students, engaging current learners, maintaining alumni relationships, and coordinating with faculty, colleges and universities need robust email marketing solutions that can handle complex, multi-audience campaigns while delivering personalized experiences at scale.

Email marketing remains the most preferred communication channel for prospective students during the college application process, with 55% preferring email over text messages (33%). The education industry also achieves an average email open rate of 28.5% — among the highest across all sectors — making email marketing an essential tool for enrollment management and student engagement.

This guide compares the best email marketing software for higher education institutions in 2025, including detailed feature breakdowns, pricing information, and recommendations to help you choose the right platform for your college or university.

Table of Contents

HubSpot

HubSpot is best for: Universities seeking an all-in-one CRM and marketing automation platform with advanced analytics

HubSpot provides higher education institutions with a comprehensive platform that unifies marketing, admissions, and student service processes. The platform enables colleges and universities to attract prospective students, convert inquiries into applications, and nurture relationships throughout the student lifecycle.

Key HubSpot Features:

• Free CRM integration – HubSpot offers a free CRM that enables admissions teams to track every interaction with prospective students from initial inquiry through enrollment, ensuring no lead falls through the cracks
• Marketing automation workflows – HubSpot automates personalized email sequences based on prospect behavior, enabling institutions to send targeted content at optimal times in the enrollment journey
• Advanced analytics and reporting – HubSpot provides dashboards that track campaign performance, lead sources, and conversion rates, allowing marketing teams to demonstrate ROI and make data-driven decisions
• Landing page and form builders – HubSpot includes tools to create high-converting landing pages for program information, virtual tours, and application starts without requiring technical expertise
• Multi-channel campaign management – HubSpot coordinates email, social media, and paid advertising campaigns from a single platform, ensuring consistent messaging across all touchpoints

HubSpot Pricing:

Mailchimp

Best for: Institutions with straightforward email marketing needs and large subscriber lists

Mailchimp delivers user-friendly email marketing tools with an extensive template library and straightforward campaign creation process. The platform serves higher education institutions that prioritize ease of use and need to manage large contact databases.

Key Mailchimp Features:

• Extensive template library – Mailchimp offers hundreds of pre-designed email templates suitable for recruitment campaigns, student newsletters, and alumni communications, reducing design time
• Audience segmentation – Mailchimp enables institutions to segment contacts based on demographics, behavior, and engagement history to deliver targeted messages to prospective students versus current students versus alumni
• A/B testing capabilities – Mailchimp allows institutions to test subject lines, send times, and content variations to optimize open rates and click-through rates
• Social media advertising integration – Mailchimp creates retargeting ads on Facebook and Instagram based on email campaign data, extending reach to prospective students across multiple platforms

Mailchimp Pricing:

• Free plan: 500 contacts, 1,000 monthly email sends
• Essentials plan: Starting at $13/month for 500 contacts (10x contact limit for monthly sends)
• Standard plan: Starting at $20/month for 500 contacts (12x contact limit for monthly sends)
• Premium plan: Starting at $350/month for 10,000 contacts (15x contact limit for monthly sends)
• Nonprofit discounts: 15% off annual plans

Constant Contact

Best for: Colleges and universities that regularly host campus events and need integrated event management

Constant Contact specializes in event marketing tools alongside traditional email marketing features, making it valuable for institutions that coordinate open houses, alumni events, webinars, and campus tours.

Key Constant Contact Features:

• Built-in event registration – Constant Contact enables institutions to create event pages, collect RSVPs, manage attendee lists, and process ticket payments directly within the platform, eliminating the need for third-party event tools
• Automated event reminders – Constant Contact sends automated email reminders to registered attendees before events, reducing no-shows for campus tours and information sessions
• Social media posting – Constant Contact schedules and publishes social media posts across multiple platforms to promote events, programs, and campus news alongside email campaigns
• Customizable email templates – Constant Contact provides themed templates for various occasions including enrollment deadlines, scholarship announcements, and academic calendar reminders

Constant Contact Pricing:

• Lite plan: $12/month for 500 contacts (basic email marketing and event management)
• Standard plan: $35/month for 500 contacts (includes automation, A/B testing, and segmentation)
• Premium plan: $80/month for 500 contacts (adds SEO tools, ads management, and advanced analytics)
• 30-day free trial available

ActiveCampaign

Best for: Institutions requiring sophisticated automation workflows and predictive analytics

ActiveCampaign provides advanced marketing automation and CRM capabilities that enable higher education institutions to create complex, behavior-based email sequences that respond to prospect actions in real-time.

Key ActiveCampaign Features:

• 900+ automation workflow templates – ActiveCampaign offers pre-built automation sequences for common higher education scenarios including application nurture campaigns, admitted student engagement, and re-enrollment outreach
• Predictive analytics – ActiveCampaign uses machine learning to identify which prospects are most likely to enroll, allowing admissions teams to prioritize outreach to high-intent leads
• Conditional content – ActiveCampaign dynamically changes email content based on recipient attributes such as intended major, campus location interest, or application status
• Lead scoring – ActiveCampaign assigns scores to prospects based on engagement behaviors like email opens, website visits, and form submissions, helping admissions counselors identify warm leads

ActiveCampaign Pricing:

• Starter plan: $15/month for 1,000 contacts
• Plus plan: $49/month for 1,000 contacts
• Professional plan: $79/month for 1,000 contacts
• Enterprise plan: $145/month
• 14-day free trial available

Omnisend

Best for: Universities with online course sales and ecommerce components

Omnisend focuses on multi-channel marketing automation with strong ecommerce integrations, making it suitable for institutions that sell online courses, professional development programs, or branded merchandise.

Key Omnisend Features:

• Multi-channel campaigns – Omnisend coordinates email, SMS, and push notifications in unified campaigns, enabling institutions to reach prospective students through their preferred communication channels
• Ecommerce platform integrations – Omnisend integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, and other ecommerce platforms to track online course purchases and trigger relevant follow-up communications
• Abandoned cart recovery – Omnisend automatically sends reminder emails to prospects who started but didn’t complete course registrations or merchandise purchases
• Product recommendations – Omnisend suggests related courses or programs to enrolled students based on their purchase history and browsing behavior

Omnisend Pricing:

• Free plan to send 500 emails/month up to 250 contacts
• Standard plan: $11.20/month up to 500 contacts
• Pro plan: $41.20/month for 2,500 contacts (adds advanced reporting and priority support)
• Pricing scales with contact list size

Envoke

Best for: Canadian universities requiring CASL compliance and data sovereignty

Envoke specializes in serving Canadian higher education institutions with compliance-focused email marketing that meets Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) requirements while storing data within Canada.

Key Envoke Features:

• Automated CASL compliance – Envoke automatically manages consent tracking, opt-in confirmations, and unsubscribe processes to ensure compliance with Canadian anti-spam legislation
• Data stored in Canada – Envoke hosts all contact data on Canadian servers, addressing data sovereignty requirements for Canadian public institutions
• Multi-department management – Envoke enables universities to create separate subaccounts for different departments while maintaining centralized oversight and brand consistency
• Higher education templates – Envoke provides email templates designed specifically for university communications including recruitment, student services, and alumni relations

Envoke Pricing:

• Pro plan: Starting at $69 CAD/month for 2,500 contacts with unlimited email sends
• Pay-as-you-go option available (store unlimited contacts, pay per email sent)
• Custom pricing for larger institutions
• Free migration services from other platforms

Higher education institutions serve diverse audiences with varying needs—prospective undergraduates, graduate students, international applicants, transfer students, alumni, and parents each require tailored messaging. Email marketing platforms segment contacts based on dozens of attributes and behaviors, enabling institutions to deliver personalized content to thousands of recipients simultaneously. In a 2024 EAB study, 93% of students said that receiving a personalized message from a college would encourage them to explore a school further.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Email marketing software provides detailed analytics on campaign performance, including open rates, click-through rates, and conversion metrics. Higher education marketing teams use this data to identify which messages resonate with prospective students, which recruitment channels generate the highest-quality leads, and how marketing efforts directly contribute to enrollment numbers. This visibility enables institutions to allocate budgets more effectively and demonstrate marketing ROI to leadership.

Improved Alumni Engagement

Email marketing platforms help institutions maintain long-term relationships with alumni through targeted communications about networking events, donation campaigns, and career opportunities. Automated workflows enable universities to send personalized birthday messages, graduation anniversary emails, and updates about developments in alumni’s fields of study, strengthening lifetime connections to the institution.

Efficient Multi-Campus Communication

For university systems with multiple campuses or online programs, email marketing software ensures consistent branding while allowing customization for local audiences. Centralized platforms enable marketing teams to create templates that individual campuses can personalize with location-specific details, events, and program information.

• Advanced segmentation and targeting: Higher education institutions need to segment audiences by multiple criteria including prospective versus current student status, academic program interest, campus location, application stage, engagement level, and demographic factors. Robust segmentation enables admissions teams to send relevant messages to engineering prospects versus liberal arts prospects, undergraduate applicants versus graduate school candidates, and engaged prospects versus those who haven’t opened recent emails.
• Behavior-based automation: Email automation triggered by specific actions delivers timely, relevant messages that move prospects through the enrollment journey. Essential automation triggers include form submissions, website page visits, email engagement, event registrations, and application milestones. For example, when a prospect downloads a program brochure, automation can trigger a follow-up email series about financial aid, campus life, and application deadlines.
• CRM integration and contact management: Email marketing platforms should integrate seamlessly with student information systems and CRM databases to ensure accurate, up-to-date contact information. This integration enables admissions staff to view complete prospect histories including email engagement, website activity, and personal interactions in one centralized location. Bidirectional data sync ensures that status changes in the SIS automatically update email segments.
• Mobile-optimized templates: With 90% of teachers accessing email on smartphones, mobile optimization is non-negotiable. Email marketing platforms must automatically adjust layouts, images, and text for mobile devices while maintaining visual appeal and functionality. Preview features should show how emails appear on various devices before sending.
• Robust analytics and reporting: Higher education marketing teams need detailed metrics beyond basic open and click rates. Essential reporting includes lead source attribution, conversion tracking through the entire enrollment funnel, engagement scoring, A/B test results, and revenue attribution for paid programs. Dashboards should visualize trends over time and enable teams to compare campaign performance across different audiences and time periods.
• Compliance and data security: Email marketing platforms must support data privacy regulations including FERPA, CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and CASL. Features should include consent management, automated unsubscribe processing, data encryption, and audit trails. For institutions subject to specific data sovereignty requirements, platforms must offer appropriate data storage locations.

Select a platform that can scale with your institution’s growth and adapt to evolving communication strategies. HubSpot enables higher education institutions to centralize marketing, admissions, and student service processes in one powerful CRM platform. The University of Wyoming leveraged HubSpot’s flexible platform to grow from basic email campaigns to sophisticated marketing automation that increased lead volume by 26% and conversion rates to 18% year-over-year while providing the data-driven insights needed to justify marketing investments to leadership.

Analyze historical email engagement data to identify when your audience most frequently opens and clicks emails. For higher education audiences, prospective students check email multiple times daily with 88% checking at least once per day. Consider sending emails during weekday afternoons when prospective students review college information or weekend mornings when they have more time to engage with content.

Monitor performance and optimize future campaigns.

Track key metrics including open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and unsubscribe rates. Compare performance across different audience segments to identify which messages resonate with which groups. A/B test variables like subject lines, send times, email length, and CTA placement. Use insights from each campaign to refine future messaging and improve overall effectiveness.

HubSpot excels for higher education institutions because it unifies marketing, admissions, and student service operations in one integrated platform. Five graduate schools at the University of San Diego replaced Salesforce with HubSpot, saving admissions teams 2-4 hours per week through automated workflows and streamlined processes. HubSpot‘s free CRM tier makes it accessible for smaller institutions while enterprise features support large university systems. The platform’s reporting capabilities enable marketing teams to demonstrate ROI by tying advertising spend directly to enrolled students, which is essential for securing continued budget support.

How much does email marketing software for higher education cost?

Email marketing software pricing for higher education varies significantly based on contact list size, feature requirements, and send volumes. Entry-level plans start around $12-15 per month for 500 contacts with basic features. Mid-tier plans with automation and advanced segmentation range from $35-80 per month for 500 contacts. Enterprise solutions for large universities with tens of thousands of contacts can exceed $3,600 per month. Many platforms including HubSpot offer free plans with limited features, and numerous providers extend educational discounts to accredited institutions. Evaluate total cost of ownership including potential overages, add-on features, and integration costs.

What are the best practices for email marketing in higher education?

Successful higher education email marketing prioritizes personalization based on prospect interests and application stage, leverages automation to deliver timely messages at critical enrollment decision points, segments audiences to ensure relevance, optimizes for mobile devices where most emails are opened, includes clear calls-to-action that guide prospects toward next steps, tests subject lines and content variations to improve performance, monitors compliance with data privacy regulations, and measures ROI by tracking conversions from inquiry through enrollment. Since 55% of prospective students prefer email communication during the application process, maintaining consistent, valuable email touchpoints throughout the enrollment journey significantly influences enrollment decisions.

The University of Wyoming increased lead volume by 26% and improved conversion rates to 18% year-over-year using HubSpot‘s marketing automation and analytics. The university leveraged HubSpot’s dashboard capabilities to demonstrate to leadership how marketing investments translated directly into enrolled students.

Five graduate schools at the University of San Diego replaced their previous CRM with HubSpot, saving admissions teams 2-4 hours per week through automated email sequences and streamlined event management while gaining visibility into prospect engagement that enabled personalized advising appointments.

University College Dublin Professional Academy used HubSpot to scale from zero to 8-figure revenue in three years, doubling their close rate from 10% to 20% by leveraging data-driven insights and streamlined communication processes that HubSpot enabled.

Ready to see how HubSpot can transform your institution’s email marketing and enrollment management? Get started with HubSpot today and experience the platform that helps higher education institutions attract more qualified prospects, convert more applicants, and demonstrate clear marketing ROI to leadership.